'Anyone can come and anyone can go.' 'There is no ideology or vision that differentiates one party from another.'
'I told them I am a Muslim, you are Sikh, you are Hindu, but we have one country to save.'
'I won't be surprised if a third alternative to Badal and the Congress is swept to power in Punjab in 2022.'
The crucial meetings come amid talks of the Congress leadership making efforts to bring all leaders together ahead of next year's Punjab Assembly polls and present a united face of the party.
If the protests have cemented the ties between the peasantry and the traders, the political implications for the BJP might become too serious to be disregarded because its core base was made up of the urban Khatri merchants.
Any move of the present government to appease the Marathas may boomerang. Eknath Shinde is a worried man with the agitation not having an easy solution, notes Ramesh Menon.
'Everything else is a sham.'
Governor Banwarilal Purohit administered the oath of office and secrecy to the 10 ministers at Punjab Bhawan in Chandigarh.
Before hitting the campaign trail, Sunny Deol offered prayers at the Gurdwara Dera Baba Nanak and also had a glimpse of historic Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib in Narowal district of Pakistan through binoculars installed at the 'darshan sthal'.
This crisis requires political sophistication and governance skills. This BJP has neither, observes Shekhar Gupta.
A dominant force in the country's politics for decades, the grand old party's free fall continued as it lost Punjab to AAP and finished with just two seats out of 403 in the politically crucial state of Uttar Pradesh.
Rather than lose direction with the Karnal protest, farmers decided to focus more on UP to defeat the BJP in the forthcoming assembly elections there, reports Nitin Kumar.
The Chinese Army troops try to enter these areas every year and try to patrol out their claim line which India does not allow.
If Modi's political retreat -- he has tried to avoid a pre-1984 type of situation in Punjab -- helps soothe Sikh sentiments, nobody should complain Modi, asserts Sheela Bhatt.
The Sikhs love a good fight, and that's what the Modi government has given them.
According to Owaisi, the CAA was only made towards making India a Hindu Rashtra.
Asserting that the agitation against the Centre's farm laws is a people's movement that will not fail, Bharatiya Kisan Union leader Rakesh Tikait on Sunday said there will be no 'ghar wapsi' till protesting farmers' demands are met.
Critics who cannot stop gloating, pronouncing Modi to be a lame-duck prime minister, may be making a huge mistake, predicts Virendra Kapoor.
'...a dazzling flash, and then, fizzle,' argues Shekhar Gupta.
No change is being done to the Army's regimental system under the Agnipath scheme and the number of personnel to be recruited in the first year of its rollout would only make up three per cent of the armed forces, government sources said on Thursday amid widespread protest against the new model in several parts of the country.
'The distrust of traditional political parties in Punjab is an advantage for AAP.'
'Where should shudra-OBCs go because of whom the nation is surviving?'
There is anti-incumbency in urban areas. Rural Punjab, the Akali base, will hold the key.
BJP CMs promote a lawless culture, one where groups backed by the State are encouraged to attack fellow citizens, where being trigger-happy is the official police policy, notes Jyoti Punwani.
'...if elections were to be held today.' 'The problem is Akhilesh is not very aggressive.' 'Had he started his campaign aggressively six months ago, the picture in UP would have been very different.'
'Amit Shah and Modi have a disciple and guru relationship. But Modi and Jaitley's relationship was based on friendship. That's the difference.'
Extended rounds of negotiations having failed, farm leaders now reckon that their best chance to pressure the government lay in defeating the BJP in the coming assembly poll, particularly in UP, observes Virendra Kapoor.
The magnificent Jat community has taken his tears to its heart, observes Sudhir Bisht. In Tikait, they see their late leader's son, the son of their doughty farm leader Mahendra Singh Tikait, says Dr Sudhir Bisht.
'It is time for all Indians to understand the truth that led to a 10-year long bloodbath in Punjab and not attempt to glorify the terrorists under the garb of human rights violations or scratch old wounds,' says Colonel Anil A Athale (retd), on the 30th anniversary of Operation Bluestar.
The Modi government's defeat on farm laws underlines the perils of governing an entire continent-sized, diverse and federal nation like the chief minister of a state, observes Shekhar Gupta.
The only factor working against the AAP, and in favour of the Congress, is the infighting in the former.
Given the worsening security scenario in Kashmir, we cannot afford to have a restive Punjab with its peasantry up in arms against the central government, argues Virendra Kapoor.
B D Pande was Punjab's governor during Operation Bluestar. In this excerpt from his memoir, In the Service of Free India: Memoir of a Civil Servant, Pande reveals what really went on behind the scenes during those dark days in India's history.
Here's a look at some of the other darbars in the hard-to-please city of Amritsar, known for its appetite for food and drink and its insolent humour:
He also lashed out at veteran Congress leader Ambika Soni for her statement on the "repercussions of having a Hindu chief minister in Punjab".
Deol reminded voters of the patriotic character he played in Gadar and referred to his 'dhai kilo ka haath' from another movie.
'The most important priority for the next 25 years should be to strengthen our democracy so that it is supportive of social harmony, and to not just respect but to take pride in the diversity of Indian society in terms of the variety of languages, religion and religious practices and social norms,' explains Nitin Desai.
As violent protests against the new recruitment scheme Agnipath raged across several states, the government on Thursday issued a clarification, asserting that not only the new model will bring in new capabilities to the armed forces but will also open up avenues for youth in the private sector as well as help them in becoming entrepreneurs with the aid of the financial package.
Anti-incumbency sentiment in Punjab puts SAD in a weak spot. But voters remain divided over AAP and Congress. Sahil Makkar reports.
The former HRD minister said the Congress is changing the education system of the country under 'unwanted influence of Left ideology'.
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